Article

2005-03-03 Home Front: WoT

CIA Director Goss Amazed at His Workload

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Posted by Steve White 2005-03-03 00:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The word is delegation, assuming Goss has enough trustworthy people (assuming he brought more than a few with him) to do so.

5 hours? Well, if he says so. Seems like the filtering and assessment should be delegated, but it's his sleep deficit - and his call. Strikes me as an inefficient way to deal with the workload, however.

I'd rather he was spending 5 hrs per day re-vetting the entire management structure of the agency, myownself. Time to volunteer Old Spook to head that team, heh.

Posted by .com 2005-03-03 2:22:19 AM|| 2005-03-03 2:22:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 I'm not surprised hes spending 5hrs just to prep for an intel briefing. There are people that are supposed to be prepping for about 12 hrs the day before to prep HIM however. They're the ones that are also critical in pointing out what needs to be underlined and highlighted and shown to the pres via Goss. I would guess that the extra time is coming from the recent spate of hotspots all around the globe, you got activities flaring up from the Phillipines to Africa and you got to decide which ones are the most critical to talk about every day.

Posted by Valentine 2005-03-03 5:37:26 AM|| 2005-03-03 5:37:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Not to mention all those helpfully unhelpful future unemployed, who no doubt are overloading him with unsorted information out of spite.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-03-03 5:58:49 AM|| 2005-03-03 5:58:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Look, it's bad enough taking over an S2/G2/N2/J2 job in an AOR you're familiar with, if not current. It's easier if your mission set is clearly circumscribed, so you know what you have to know, what you have to have situational awareness of, what you can leave to your troops to keep up with, and what you can get from other Intelligence functions in the AOR or national level. Goss has multiple challenges: his AOR is the whole world; he knows he can't trust what's being fed to him; and his boss is a "voracious consumer of intelligence." Worse, intelligence production and dissemination is only part of his job, he's got all the rest of the bureaucratic requirements laid on all federal agencies, and he has to go see Congress more often than just about any other senior officer of the executive.

His AOR is the whole world. These days, he can't afford to be without at least a passing familiarity with everything.

He can't trust what's sent to him. That's obvious, too. He should be a SOB with everything, challenging every assumption, every source. Any new Intel boss do that, it's his first opportunity to train his people and find out what they're thinking and doing. In this case, Goss was given the job because his predecessors failed and the CIA is broken. To spend five hours a day challenging everything that goes into a 30-minute brief is nothing. In reality, those are probably the only five hours of his day that he's happy

His boss is a voracious consumer of intelligence. Surprise, Bush pays attention, and apparently pays a lot of attention. Goss doesn't want the President to point out to him that today's conclusion X doesn't jibe with that intercept that was reported last week or the assessment he read last month. Every nugget Intel officer prays for a boss that really pays attention, that hangs every word he says. Then comes the rude awakening, because when the boss pays attention to every detail, the Intel O now has to sweat every detail, every tangent to every detail, and every detail that has nothing to do with what he's briefing, but that his attention-paying boss might ask about. He also learns quickly that his boss has other sources of information than the Intel O, and if he isn't on top of everything, he will be embarassed by what the boss knows that he doesn't. He gets sharp quick, or he gets fired.

Welcome to the job, Director Goss.

Posted by longtime lurker 2005-03-03 9:32:34 AM|| 2005-03-03 9:32:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Good to see Goss taking his job much more seriously than his predecessor - he is what we need. I believe that as more comes out, Tenet will be seen as the guy who let the CIA rot under his watch, much the way Louis Freeh bent the FBI and Janet Reno trashed the DoJ.

Until Goss gets things cleared out and gets reliable people there on merit (not on who went to what college and which social circles they were in), he is going to be vey busy. Remember - its still bascially a Civil Service type setup, meaning its damned hard to ever fire anyone - so you move them out of the way, and many times you have to create the "out of the way" position to do that. On top of that, he has a huge rebuilding job to do in Ops I bet.

Whats hamstringing Goss is he is still sorting the sheep from the goats -- and there are a lot of arrogant "old boy" bastards ensconced near the "top of the food chain" that need to be moved out, along with their pet middle managers.

Lurker you nailed it - its one of the ironies of intel work:

The only thing worse than a "customer" who doesn't listen is one who does.

Small wonder Bush pissed off CIA -- if he is that sharp, then he probably popped them more than once on inconsistencies and contradictions. Bush made them do thier job and held them to higher standards. That could be why they leaked and backstabbed him, and the "leakers" so far have turned out to be real turds in terms of capability. (Color me highly UN-impressed by the "anonymous" fellow who is making a book tour now - the capabilities he has demonstrated wouldn't get him even a junior desk in any department I was running).

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-03 9:59:07 AM|| 2005-03-03 9:59:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 may be hard to fire them, OS, but who wants to be the one-man station in Ulan Bator, without political cover?

Posted by Frank G 2005-03-03 10:23:54 AM|| 2005-03-03 10:23:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Good to see you, OS -- tell me, you interested in that job .com is offering? I think everyone here would put in a good word for you ...

Posted by Steve White 2005-03-03 10:32:46 AM|| 2005-03-03 10:32:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 In addition to being a voracious consumer of intelligence, Bush is an excellent manager, delegater, leader. I am sure he has an appreciation for what Goss is facing and a fair amount of patience to allow Goss a chance to fix it. But Goss needs to get his team in place to handle a lot of this detail work and to identify the deadwood preventing it from flowing more smoothly. Goss is in danger of loosing sight of the forest.

Bush's AOR is also the whole world, but he gets a full night's sleep, or at least pretends to. Goss should do the same at a minimum to appear to the deadwood that he is in charge and is comfortable with that fact. This comment is too much a sign of weakness to the deadwood who want to see him fail.

God bless him.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-03-03 10:44:40 AM|| 2005-03-03 10:44:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Mrs D, I'm missing the part that says he isn't getting enough sleep. However, I think he's made it abundantly clear who's in charge at CIA.

OS, it's linked around here in the last day or so, the Commentary article on what's wrong at CIA, makes a clear estimate of how thoroughly unimportant "anonymous" really was at CIA. It's a good read. My guess is that Bush took the same info and assessments that CIA had, but reached strongly different conclusions about what it meant and what to do, not least of which was to act instead of react. Not a whole lot different than what Reagan faced with Soviet assessments, and why he ignored them.

Posted by longtime lurker 2005-03-03 11:15:06 AM|| 2005-03-03 11:15:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 In addition to being a voracious consumer of intelligence, Bush is an excellent manager, delegater, leader.

I love the satire...

Posted by Mr. Devoius 2005-03-03 3:38:26 PM|| 2005-03-03 3:38:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Have a cookie Mr. D!

Posted by Shipman 2005-03-03 4:56:30 PM|| 2005-03-03 4:56:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Good to see Goss taking his job much more seriously than his predecessor - he is what we need. I believe that as more comes out, Tenet will be seen as the guy who let the CIA rot under his watch, much the way Louis Freeh bent the FBI and Janet Reno trashed the DoJ.

Until Goss gets things cleared out and gets reliable people there on merit (not on who went to what college and which social circles they were in), he is going to be vey busy. Remember - its still bascially a Civil Service type setup, meaning its damned hard to ever fire anyone - so you move them out of the way, and many times you have to create the "out of the way" position to do that. On top of that, he has a huge rebuilding job to do in Ops I bet.

Whats hamstringing Goss is he is still sorting the sheep from the goats -- and there are a lot of arrogant "old boy" bastards ensconced near the "top of the food chain" that need to be moved out, along with their pet middle managers.

Lurker you nailed it - its one of the ironies of intel work:

The only thing worse than a "customer" who doesn't listen is one who does.

Small wonder Bush pissed off CIA -- if he is that sharp, then he probably popped them more than once on inconsistencies and contradictions. Bush made them do thier job and held them to higher standards. That could be why they leaked and backstabbed him, and the "leakers" so far have turned out to be real turds in terms of capability. (Color me highly UN-impressed by the "anonymous" fellow who is making a book tour now - the capabilities he has demonstrated wouldn't get him even a junior desk in any department I was running).

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-03 9:59:07 AM|| 2005-03-03 9:59:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-03 9:59:07 AM|| 2005-03-03 9:59:07 AM|| Front Page Top

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